The stone of which the temple is built was brought from the neighbouring quarry, at the bottom of which there is a single stone lying seventy feet in length, fourteen in breadth, and fourteen feet six inches in thickness. Its weight, according to these dimensions, must be above 1130 tons! It would require, we are told, the united strength of sixty thousand men of our time to raise this single stone! The stones used at Balbec are the largest that have ever been moved by human power. The largest in the pyramids of Egypt do not exceed eighteen feet. But here, of those that compose the sloping wall, which surrounds the temple on the west and north, three occupy a space of one hundred and seventy-five feet and a half; viz., the 1st, fifty-eight feet seven inches; the 2nd, fifty-eight feet eleven inches; and the 3rd, exactly fifty-eight feet long; and each of these is twelve feet thick. "When it is considered," says La Martine, "that some of these blocks of hewn granite are raised one above another to the height of twenty or thirty feet from the ground;--that they have been brought from distant quarries, and raised to so vast a height to form the pavement of the temple;--the mind is overwhelmed by such an example of human power. The science of modern times cannot help us to explain it, and we cannot be surprised, therefore, that it is referred to the supernatural." "The shades of evening," continues this accomplished traveller, "which slowly descended the mountains of Balbec, and obscured, one by one, the columns and the ruins, imparted an additional air of mystery to the picturesque and magical effect of these wonderful works of man and time. We felt the full insignificance of human nature; and while contemplating the mass and eternity of these monuments, we compared man to the swallows, which build their nests for a season in the interstices of these stones, without knowing for whom, or by whom, or for what purpose, they were collected together. The power which moved these masses, and accumulated these blocks, is unknown to us. The dust of the marble, which we trod under our feet, knows more than we do, but can tell us nothing; and in a few centuries to come, the generations who may, in their turn, visit the wrecks of our monuments now existing, will ask, without being able to answer, why we laboured without being able to build and carve. The works of man are more durable than his thoughts; movement is the law of the human mind; the definite is the dream of man's vanity and ignorance; God is an object which incessantly recedes from us, as we endeavour to approach him. We are continually advancing, but we never arrive. The Deity, whose divine figure man seems to embody in his imagination, and to enshrine in his temples, continually enlarges, and exceeds the narrow boundaries of our minds, and our edifices; leaves the temples and the altars to crumble into dust; and summons man to seek him where he is most plainly manifested, viz., in